NordAq permitting Shadura test

NordAq Energy Inc. is moving ahead on its efforts to test and potentially develop a Cook Inlet natural gas discovery that the company announced last year.

The Alaska-based independent wants to test the Shadura No. 1 well to determine if the prospect can produce commercially. The company is currently permitting a 4.2-mile gravel road and a 100-foot by 200-foot pad with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

If the test is successful, NordAq would install two eight-inch gathering lines and a fiber optic cable in the right of way of the road and increase the production pad to 12.3 acres.

The Army Corp is taking comments on the proposal through Feb. 24.

Shadura No. 1 is on Cook Inlet Region Inc. land in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

NordAq completed the 14,000-foot wildcat in April 2011. Although the company did not release results, it announced a “significant natural gas discovery” and later suggested that the prospect could produce up to 50 million cubic feet per day over 30 years.

According to the public notice, NordAq is also in the process of permitting a second well at the Shadura prospect. Although the well would use the same road as the Shadura No. 1 well, it would involve drilling on an Alaska Department of Natural Resources lease.

That application is not yet complete and therefore not yet out for public review.

Meanwhile, NordAq is also permitting the Tiger Eye North No. 1 well on the west side of the Cook Inlet, around 1.8 miles southwest of the Trading Bay Production Facility.

The 12,000-foot well would target gas and oil in the Tyonek and Hemlock formations. Nordaq’s website was under reconstruction as of Jan. 25, but the company posted its tentative plans for Shadura on its website Nov. 4. See Petroleum News article on those plans at http://bit.ly/zR3YGI.

—Eric Lidji